Sadly, this is the main reason most people (including me) aren't using it. I'd love to try it out, but until I can get a log in, I'm just going to ignore it. They are throwing away a lot of good-will by making these announcements, then when users go to the site they get turned away because they aren't one of the blessed few with an invite. If I don't get access soon, I'm going to file them under 'ignore', since it seems like I've been trying to get an account for years, now ;(
Most people don't know what PGP/GPG is, probably know less than nothing (have misconceptions) about encryption, and don't even realize why a service like keybase.io would be helpful, much less that it exists.
What I love about this community is that there are people like aianus below who have early access to stuff like this, and being part of this community will engender them to help you. I like this service because people outside of this community will get involved after they work out the kinks. People getting invites are developers and tech-centric people who likely have other keys anyway and are testdriving the software.
The biggest way forward for keybase would be Facebook or Twitter allowing you to integrate your key into the service.
> it seems like I've been trying to get an account for years, now ;(
The keybase github account was created 2 years ago on sept 6 ;). Someone below will likely help you out if you email them.
Thanks aianus. Appreciate the invite.
So, they need to go ahead and get a diverse audience to spot problems early on. For sure, they should stick to a patient audience that knows they're helping something evolve rather than using a finished product. Still need to broaden and diversify it, though. I'd start with the 10,000+ volunteers on that waiting list.
> Asking what GPG-loving techies and HN readers think about usability
Although, many of us do UX or appreciate and can accurately review it, they want the GPG-loving techies to evaluate their security and software. This isn't exactly a social network, you can't move fast and break stuff, and just push flaming builds and iterate. This has to launch to the public with bulletproof security. This is because in 3 years they want "Log in with Keybase.io" on every website instead of "Log in with Facebook" and they want secondary authentication for twitter and facebook to leverage their keys. So they have to convince people and those companies they have security pretty well figured out.
I understand where you are coming from and I would like it if they rolled out quickly. They could maybe even do it tomorrow, I don't actually know but so far it seems to work well. However, the public isn't really clamoring for this anyway, because they don't even know what it is. I was even surprised how old keys were. You can see elon musks e@x.com key from the early 90's on the MIT keyserver and some are much older than that. Not even everone on HN has keys I bet, so the public isn't as anxious as you or I might be ;). I hope they release soon though.
How is merely using Keybase.io a security evaluation? It isn't. Security evaluation is all kinds of activities with specialized skill working on source, interfaces, debuggers and so on. You do that in parallel with testing of usability, performance, reliability, and so on. So, they need the security evaluations but also need users running it through paces for other reasons. They can and should do both.
"This isn't exactly a social network, you can't move fast and break stuff, and just push flaming builds and iterate."
Whose asking for that? I believe I said patient, filtered user-base that are clearly told it is a work in progress given to them for evaluation.
"I understand where you are coming from and I would like it if they rolled out quickly."
I'm not even asking for that. I'm just saying they need to seriously increase their user-base and with more non-technical, privacy-focused users. What input they're receiving before launch needs to be as diverse and representative of what they'll receive after launch. They can still cap the user count or be selective. Closed with 10,000+ person backlog or wide open in full production is a false dilemma. Heck, maybe even a room's worth of people from each likely demographic, skill level, target platform, and so on. Will help spot many issues coming from each before production.
"Not even everone on HN has keys I bet, so the public isn't as anxious as you or I might be ;)"
I should be clear that I'm not factoring in the general public at all: they'll continue using Facebook Messenger, etc for private communications because it's cool, convenient, cheap, whatever. I don't waste time trying to push privacy tech, esp key management, on the public any more past improvements to infrastructure or tools they already use. Strong security/privacy is and always was a niche. However, as Keybase's vision realizes, the niche is potentially larger than techies with GPG or stuff in keyservers: people who would use it if it was simpler & less technical at interface. So, I advocate they get more of that audience into their user-base for feedback.
I guess my point was that they have a really long release cycle because this is a security project. Regardless, I have 9 invites so I am considering allocating a few to some non-technical friends now to get their take.
I kind of got that. Picturing "move fast and break stuff" applied to security would be a hilarious concept. So long as it was the competition doing it. :)
"Regardless, I have 9 invites so I am considering allocating a few to some non-technical friends now to get their take."
Now that's a good idea. Might help so long as they're the kind of people that go through extra trouble for privacy or control of their data. You'll know it's the case if they ask "what is a" or "how do you" on something everyone assumed was obvious. If that moment doesn't come, the UX team was really good. ;)
Awesome, I brought this up last week: